


A Short Story on the Revival of Hazel Levesque

by LastHope



Series: Superheroes of Olympus [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Origin Story, Superheroes of Olympus, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 07:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2301353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LastHope/pseuds/LastHope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hazel never had what one would consider a 'normal' life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Short Story on the Revival of Hazel Levesque

Growing up in New Orleans, Hazel Levesque never knew her father.  And that never bothered her, really.  What _did_ bother her were the things that happened whenever Hazel’s emotions got too out-of-control.  Whenever Hazel was ever nervous, or scared, gems and gold would pop out at her feet.  When Hazel was mad, or sad, fissures would crack at her feet and around her, and minor tremors (or worse) would rock the area.

Hazel had tried telling her mother, but Marie Levesque never gave any outward show of whether or not she believed her only child.  She just mumbled something about a ‘no-good rotten bastard’ darkly under her breath, and any gems that Hazel had caused to appear would be snatched to pawn off to someone.

Sometimes, when Hazel was coming home from school, she would hear her mom talking with someone in the apartment.  It wasn’t abnormal for strangers to be in their apartment, as that was where her mother did business (Marie Levesque did business as a fortune-teller and performed séances.  It was all a scam.), but Hazel could always tell that this was no customer.  Her mother was crasser with him, swearing more than the butcher down the street.  Every time she would enter the apartment though, it would be empty.  As if no one had actually been there.  Hazel knew better than to ask her mother about the episodes.

Then one day, coming home, she actually heard the man speak for the first time.

“Marie, will you just _listen_ -” It was a baritone voice, which sounded oddly pleasing to her ear.  She wouldn’t know for a while yet, but these were the very first words she ever heard her father say.

“I have been listening!”  Marie snapped at the man, and Hazel could tell her mother was furious; her French accent that normally was almost non-existent had thickened to a point that only people who have encountered Hazel’s mother this irate before could be able to translate.  Luckily, Hazel was one such person.  She wasn’t too sure if the other man was or not.  “I have listened, and regardless we are still leaving!”

Leaving?  Hazel hadn’t been aware that they were leaving.  She remembered her mother off-handedly mentioning the idea of leaving New Orleans for better work venues, but Hazel hadn’t realized her mother had meant so soon.

“I won’t be able to protect-” Marie Levesque cut the man off with a barking laugh.

“You mean keep an eye on!”  Hazel’s mother accused.  “If you were so worried about her following the footsteps of-”

“ _It’s not that!_ ”  The man snapped, cutting her mother off, though Hazel was barely paying attention to the back and forth anymore.

Protect?  Who was that man trying to protect?  Who needed to be protected?  Following in whose footsteps?

 _Who_ following in _whose_ footsteps?

“There’s something starting to rise, Marie, something far bigger than your Sight can tell you.  And I’ll be damned if-”

“You are already damned!” Marie snarled viciously, in a tone Hazel had never heard her use before.  “Not only that, but you have spread that damnation to myself and my family.  Take your pretty words and lying promises and never come near my family as long as I live!”

Her mother’s words were so forceful that even Hazel out in the hall took a step back, away from the door.

She took a deep breath, and counted to a hundred slowly.  Once Hazel reached one hundred, she deemed it safe enough to approach the door without making it too obvious that she had been eavesdropping on the conversation.  There was no noise emitting from the apartment, so Hazel felt that she was in the clear.

As her ritual, Hazel called out,

“Mom, I’m home!” Gazing discreetly about the abode to try and get a glimpse of the man her mother had been verbally ripping apart.  There was no sign of him.

“Hazel?” Her mom appeared from behind a door. “Hazel. You’re home.” Was it just her, or was that relief in Marie’s voice?  Hazel wasn’t sure.

“Start packing dear, we’re leaving.”

“Now?” Hazel hoped it wasn’t true.

“Yes, now.” Marie nodded. “I want us to be on the first flight out of New Orleans by 10 tomorrow morning _at the latest_.”

“But mom!” Hazel protested in true-teenage fashion.

“No buts! Get packing.”

“At least let me say goodbye to Sammy,” Hazel pleaded.  “I can’t leave without letting him know.”

But Marie Levesque was already shaking her head.

“No.  If you tell Sammy, he’s likely to tell someone else, and that will ruin everything!  Tell no one of our departure.”

“Ruin what?” Hazel was desperate; gems started glowing on the carpet at her feet. “Mom, he’s my _best friend._   I can’t just ditch him without an explanation- he’ll hate me _forever!_ ”  Sammy was Hazel’s life-long best friend.  They had bonded almost immediately in primary school with the fact that they were the only two people of color in their entire school.

“Then let him hate you! I do not care.” Marie vanished into the kitchen, voice trailing behind her, “And calm down!  Clean up that mess you’re leaving on the carpet.”

“I hate you!” Hazel shouted instead, vanishing into her room, abandoning the jewels on the carpet.

Against Hazel’s best attempts, however, they were still on a plane to Alaska in the morning.

Why Alaska, Hazel didn’t know.  And if she did know, it was lost, just like all her memories of her year spent in the state.  All that she remembered was disembarking the plane, still furious with her mother.  Then, nothing.

Blurred images.

A scream.

The feeling that she was drowning.

Then, nothing.

* * *

The first thing Hazel remembered after disembarking the plane was surreal, and she was still uncertain whether or not it had actually happened.

Really, it was all a blur just like her other memories, but Hazel remembered feeling someone’s hand on her forehead.  It was cold, almost like a corpse, and there was the sound of someone’s voice.

“Think of this a favor,” Hazel swore she heard a light tenor say, “One that you’ll need to return someday.”  She had managed to open her eyes, catching a glimpse of dark hair before a hand was being placed over her eyes.

Then there was the sound of a heart-monitor going out of control, and Hazel was gone again.

The second time she woke up, Hazel was more aware of her surroundings.

She was in a hospital room, an IV stuck into her arm.  At the side of her bed was a boy in a black t-shirt and blue jeans.  Black hair, and his attention was buried in a handheld gaming device.  There was a silver colored ring in the shape of a skull on the ring finger of his right hand.

Hazel tried to say something, get his attention to ask what he was doing in her hospital room (because she felt safe in making that presumption), but all she managed was a weak cough.  The sound did manage to grab the boy’s attention, pulling him away from the game in his hands.  Noticing that Hazel was awake, he got out of the chair, headed for the door, calling out for a doctor in a relatively calm tenor.

From there, Hazel had to go through a series of examinations, tests, surveys, and a lot of other overwhelming things over the course of the following days.  None of the doctors answered any of her questions, and she was left in the dark until almost a week after she had awoken in the hospital for the second time.

The boy from before was sitting in her hospital room again.  There was a different gaming system in his hands, but the silver skull ring was still on his finger, and he had another black shirt on.

“Hey,” She managed this time, drawing the boy’s attention almost immediately as she sat up on the bed.  Once she had his attention though, she was uncertain of what to do with it.  Hazel had so many questions, she wasn’t sure which one to answer first.

“Hey,” Was the response, before the boy’s attention was returned to his game.  Hazel thought for another moment, before deciding to go with the big question first.

“What-” Hazel started to ask, wanting to know why exactly she was in the hospital, but the boy cut her off, not even looking up from his game.

“Happened?  I’m not supposed to tell you.  The doctor’s say ‘you’re supposed to remember on your own’.”  He let out a small snort, like it was funny.  “I wasn’t told anything anyways, so I wouldn’t be much help.”

“-is your name?” Hazel switched tactics instead.  If she couldn’t know what happened to her, Hazel needed to at least know that much.  “And why are you in my room?”

The boy hesitated, as if he hadn’t expected that turn of events.

“Nico,” He finally said, flipping the handheld closed, setting it at the foot of the bed.  Hazel squished the urge to kick it off the bed because it was rude and childish.

“I’m here because,” Nico flailed his hands like he wasn’t completely sure how to answer.  “Well, someone had to be here.”

“So you’re a candy striper?” Nico grimaced, and Hazel figured that meant she was wrong.  “If not, why are you here?”

“I’m your… brother?” He made it sound more like a question than a statement, nose scrunching up in a way that Hazel found rather endearing.  “Sort of.  It’s kind of complicated… I should have waited until Dad or Penelope were here…”  Nico started mumbling to himself, retracting from what short eye contact they had had to stare at his hands which were now fidgeting on his lap.

“I’ve never had a brother before,” Hazel cut in over Nico’s muttering, making sure to draw his attention.  “Or a sibling, really.  The closest I had was Sammy, in New Orleans, and he was my best friend.”  She was smiling at Nico, but she didn’t miss how he paled at Sammy’s name.  That would be something Hazel would have to make sure to ask about later.

“Sammy and I never kept secrets from each other,” Hazel continued, reaching over and grabbing Nico’s hands and clasping them in her own.  “So if we’re going to be siblings, you’re going to have to promise not to keep secrets from me, alright?”  Nico hesitated, before swallowing heavily and nodding.

“Alright,” He said thickly.  “I think I can do that.”

Hazel beamed at him.

“Wonderful!  Now, care to share about what happened to me?”

* * *

Later, Hazel felt completely and truly horrible for doing that to Nico.  He seemed like a really nice kid, and if what he said was right about them being sort-of siblings then Hazel was going to be spending a lot of time with him.  (She knew she’d have to apologize to him eventually for pulling such a nasty trick on him.)  Still, it was the only way (at the time) that Hazel had been able to guarantee an answer out of him (or anybody, really) about what had happened to her.

Even then, like Nico had said before, he hadn’t known much about what had happened to Hazel.  Something had happened when she and her mom were up in Alaska, and for the past 6 months Hazel had been in a coma.  Hazel had been brought down to Washington for medical treatment, and it hadn’t looked good for her for a while. 

From what Nico told her, the night before the first time she woke up the doctor’s had given up hope, and Hazel’s condition had started deteriorating.  Then somehow Hazel miraculously had managed to pull through, beat all odds, and wake up.  (Hazel knew it wasn’t a miracle, someone helped her, but she had no way of being able to tell someone for certain what it was that night.)

When Hazel had asked Nico about her mother, where she was, how she had been faring while Hazel had been in a coma, her sort-of brother had paled, drawing in on himself with each question.  Before Hazel could demand an answer from Nico, who had been so painfully obvious with the fact that he knew something, a beeper that Hazel hadn’t noticed before went off at his hip.  Nico gave it a look akin to praising God, and he mumbled an apology to Hazel as he rushed out of the room to answer it.

Today, Nico hadn’t been in her room when she woke up.  Hazel was disappointed by this, because she missed the company, and also because Hazel felt as if she was responsible for chasing him off.

Now, it was nearing the end of visiting hours and nobody had visited Hazel at all besides some doctors and nurses.  She had been informed that her physical therapy would begin tomorrow to help her retrain the muscles Hazel hadn’t used in the past 6 months.  (No one answered any of her questions about her mother, and Hazel wasn’t sure how to feel about that.)

“Good evening, Miss Levesque.” A voice chimed from the corner of her room, and Hazel couldn’t stop herself from letting out a small yelp.

Standing in the corner, shrouded by shadows, was a boy who looked to be about her age, dressed in a black and white suit, with a black bowtie at his throat, and a black mask over his eyes.  Hazel mused for one fear stricken second that if he had a top hat on and a cape, he’d look like Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon.

“I am the Ambassador of Pluto,” His feet made no noise as he crossed the room, answering her question of who he was before she could ask it.  “But you may refer to me as simply Ambassador.”

Before Hazel could help herself, she blurted out,

“But I thought Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore.” Almost immediately as Hazel said that, her face burned red as her mind caught up with her mouth.  Of course he wasn’t talking about the planet, how stupid could she be?

Pluto was the wealthiest man alive.  In the records of Olympus City on heroes and villains, he was labeled as one of the in-betweens.  No one knew for sure what his superpower was, but everyone did know that he had control of the world’s finances.  He had never stated any sort of allegiance to good or evil.

“Oh my, I am so sorry,” Hazel started to apologize, but the Ambassador simply laughed, waving a hand at her to tell her to stop.

“It’s quite alright,” The Ambassador waved her off, taking seat in the empty chair by her bed. “But enough about me, I am here to talk about you.”

“About me?” Hazel wasn’t sure what Pluto wanted from her.  She wasn’t that special for any sort of hero or villain to take interest in her.  Hazel had no superpowers anyone would want to harness from her.

_Except for the fact that you can summon jewels and precious metals from the earth._

“Yes, you.” The Ambassador nodded.  “See, my father has taken a special… interest, we’ll say, in you.  He wants to offer you a rare opportunity.”  But Hazel was hung up on something else.

“Pluto is _your father_?” She felt horrible but Hazel couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice.  The Ambassador gave a small scowl, but nodded.

“I understand it is a bit unbelievable,” He answered slowly, “But we have similar blood running through our veins.”  The Ambassador drummed his fingers impatiently on his leg.

“Now, about that opportunity,” The Ambassador continued, “Pluto is offering to be your sponsor if you attend Camp Jupiter, one of the training locations for those with powers and those who wish to become heroes.”

“But I don’t have any powers!” Hazel interrupted.  “Why would he be interested in me?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Miss Levesque.” The Ambassador gave her a wry smile.  “You may just surprise yourself.”

Hazel bit her lip, thinking of all the jewels that used to appear around her, and the tremors.  She had certainly heard of other people having similar powers and others, but her?  It was just unbelievable.  Hazel couldn’t have any powers- it just wasn’t possible.

The Ambassador stood, setting a piece of paper on her bedside table.

“Take your time deciding.” He said. “And when you do come to a decision, whether it’s yes or no, text it to that number, and we’ll continue from there.”

The Ambassador gave Hazel a short bow that brought another flush of red to her cheeks, and then shadows engulfed him and he was gone.

Staring at the paper on her bedside table, Hazel squished the urge to scream as she buried her face in her hands.

Life kept getting complicated for her.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Visit the series' Tumblr 'superheroesofolympus' to keep up to date with more stories from the Universe, and to ask questions about the series and the characters!


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